


After Captain America Dies

by spiderfire



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Hydra wins, Evil Wins, F/M, Gen, Hydra (Marvel), Natasha Cap, Natasha-centric, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-11 06:12:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4424453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiderfire/pseuds/spiderfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian was, predictably, packed.  The sidewalk outside the building had become a shrine. People had taped letters of thanks to the marble wall, posed action figures and stuffed animals, left flowers on the ground all along the block.  There were candles, pictures of Captain America with civilians, vintage Captain America comic books.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Captain America Dies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flipflop_diva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/gifts).



Washington Post: **Captain America found dead on Potomac river bank**

Wall Street Journal: **Trillions wasted as three SHIELD helicarriers crash**

New York Post: **Hydra – Terrorist threat or visionary leadership?**

Chicago Sun-Tribune: **Black Widow in custody – Ironman protests**

 

The Winter Soldier pulled the hat down low over his eyes. The three day growth of beard and his slumped posture did much to fool the biometric triggers that were everywhere these days. 

The Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian was, predictably, packed.  The sidewalk outside the building had become a shrine. People had taped letters of thanks to the marble wall, posed action figures and stuffed animals, left flowers on the ground all along the block.  There were candles, pictures of Captain America with civilians, vintage Captain America comic books. The curators had done their best to keep the memorabilia outside, but even inside, people wore shirts and sweatshirts emblazoned with Captain America’s shield and crowded around monitors showing documentaries. 

The Winter Soldier walked unrecognized through the exhibit.  People parted around him. He stopped to stare at the giant picture of Bucky Barnes and then moved on to watched a short interview with Peggy Carter.  Looking at her, he thought, _I knew her.  I knew her twice_. He remembered her coming to see him, her steel grey hair pulled back into a bun.  He remembered the way her shoes had clicked on the shiny tile. He remembered the way she had held her arms crossed as she talked to the mission captain.  He had been being prepped for a mission and she stood to the side, watching as STRIKE handed him his weapons and he stashed them away.  He didn’t recognize her then and he did not think she recognized him either, but now he remembered an echo of a much younger woman. A woman who had eyes only for Steve.  The woman in the video was between those two moments.

He finished his circuit of the exhibit and found himself standing in front of a giant image of Steve Roger’s face.  He looked up, staring at the face that was both familiar and utterly strange. As he looked, he realized that one of those biometric scanners was right above the image of Steve.  With a sigh, he took off his hat and looked directly at the scanner, thinking, _it should not have turned out like this._

***

USA Today: **Has the government gone too far?**

New York Times: **World leaders protest US government plans**

Chicago Tribune: **Top SHIELD agents charged with treason**

Los Angeles Times: **World Security Council disbanded by UN Secretary General**

Natasha Romanoff paced the cell, three steps forward, three steps back. The cell was a bare concrete box.  There was a toilet in the corner, a spigot for water and nothing else.  Cameras blinked from all four corners.  The light never went off.  She had lost track of time but judging from how her body was no longer hungry, how her hand shook when she held it out, it had been over a week since they had locked her in here. 

She was still dressed in the tattered remains of Councilwoman Hawley’s clothes. She had lost the jacket, the blouse was blood spattered and ragged and the skirt hung limply on her hips, barely staying up.  They had taken the shoes, the jewelry, even the hairpins. 

Pierce had told her as he had handed her off to the STRIKE thugs that Steve was dead.  Fury, well, who knew? When she had last seen him he was alive but he had been on the top floor of the Triskelion.  Moments later one of the helicarriers had crashed into the building as it fell from the sky.  Maria? Sam? Hell, Clint? Tony? Bruce?  Were they all under arrest? Dead?

She slid down the wall opposite the door and stared at it. It had not opened once since they put her in here.  It was easy to let her mind go blank, to think of nothing, to let time pass. It was a skill she had mastered as a child. 

There was a scratching sound and the door began to move.  Cautiously, she stood, sliding back up the wall as the door opened.  Whatever they might want from her, it couldn’t possibly be good. Her secrets had all been released to the web.  She had nothing to tell them.  All she had left was her skills and her body. 

The door opened and she stared at the shape silhouetted in the door. He was not hard to recognize but she was surprised - that Steve was dead and he was not did not seem possible.  It did not make sense. How was it that the Winter Soldier could have walked away and Steve died?

As much as she hated it, as much as she tried to stomp it down, hope flickered in her mind. Maybe this meant Steve was still alive too. Maybe he had rallied with Ironman or Hawkeye or even Bruce and they were coming for her.

The Winter Soldier took a step into the room. The wall was firm against her back. There was nowhere to go. 

At her best, he had nearly killed her. Even using every hard won dirty trick she could think of, it was bare luck that she had walked away.  The gunshot wound in her shoulder had closed in the last week but it still ached every time she moved her arm.  Now, with trembling hands that had no grip, what could she do against him?

He was staring at her, his head half cocked, like he was trying to figure her out.  She pushed away from the wall, putting her weight over her toes. Her eyes did not move from his face. His puzzled expression deepened, 

Abruptly he tossed something at her. She reached to grab it out of the air but she must have been even more out of it than she knew. It breezed passed her fingers and clattered to the ground.  “Put them on,” he growled, speaking in badly accented Russian.

She bent over to pick up the mag cuffs from the floor. Sighing, she fit them over her wrists. 

“Put your arms behind you,” he ordered. She complied.  Her shoulder twinged as the cuffs activated and locked together. 

He stepped forward, closing the gap between them. She realized that while he was dressed in tac gear, the holsters on his leg were empty.   “You were trained in the Red Room,” he said. It was not a question.  

She raised her chin in assent standing up straighter. In the back of her mind she heard the echo of a voice, _spine straight, shoulders back, bum tucked, arms soft._ She had a visereral memory of standing in front of a mirror, her right hand on the barre as she minutely adjusted her position. _Perfection,_ the ballet mistress had said. 

Back in those days she had heard of him, of course. Some mornings they would wake up and one of the girls would be missing from the dorm.  The teachers told them that the Winter Soldier had taken them.  As a young girl, the older girls had told her that the Winter Soldier ate little girls before going on a mission. When she was a teenager, the stories they told about the Winter Solider and his appetites changed.

“Did they sell you to SHIELD?” he asked, shaking her from her thoughts. 

Her eyes widened. “No,” she replied, shaking her head. “No, no.” She thought of Clint again.  _You have a choice_ , he had told her. _Get out there, fight with me, or I kill you now_.  She had been so young when she had replied, _as if you could._ Then the wall had collapsed and she had found herself back to back with him, fighting for their lives.  When it was over, the helicopter ladder had dangled from the sky. He had swarmed up it. Hesitating for only a moment, she had followed him. Standing in the door of the helicopter, whipped by the wind, Fury had taken her hand and pulled her in.  _There’s no turning back, Agent Romanoff_ , he had warned.  _I know_ , she replied.

“Then how?” he asked.

“How?”

“How did you come to be with SHIELD?”

“Well, there was this exchange program and I…”

He closed the gap between them and flattened her against the wall, his arm across her throat.  “No games, Widow,” he growled. 

She thought of Clint again, of the arrow he had not fired.  “There was a chance,” she said.  He dropped his weight to his heals, taking the pressure off her throat. “I took it.”

He stared at her, his eyes disturbing and penetrating. It was all she could do to hold his gaze, to not look at the floor. Abruptly he released her and stepped back. “They let you go,” he concluded.

That was something she had thought of many times over the years. Maybe she had not escaped. Maybe they had let her go. To what end?  Why? She shrugged.  “Perhaps.”

The Winter Soldier grabbed her shoulder and jerked her towards the door.  “Let’s go.”

The hallway was echoing and featureless. Grey, unpainted cinder blocks lined the hallway.  Featureless steel doors led off at uneven intervals.  Overhead, greenish fluorescent lights hummed.  “Where are we going?” she asked. 

There were two STRIKE team members she had occasionally seen in the halls at the Triskelion standing by a door.  The insignia on their shoulders still had the SHIELD logo.  “Interrogation,” he growled. He shoved her along, past the men whose names she did not know. 

A minute or so later he was walking very close behind her and he said softly, “There is no escape. There may be freedom, for a time, but no escape.  The treatments may have worn off, but when they do them again, you’ll break.  I always do.  Eventually.” 

She wanted to twist around, look over her shoulder to see his face, but she did not dare. The strain in his voice, even wrapped around the barely understandable Russian that he spoke was palpable.

Abruptly, his hand was on her shoulder, hard and unyielding.  He stopped her in front of a door.  There was a security camera over the door.  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him flick something at it and the little red light went out.  Putting his right hand on the door pad, he said, “Codename: Winter Soldier”. The door slide into the wall showing a trash-filled alley. 

His hands were on her arms and abruptly the cuffs released,

She turned to him, questioning. 

“Go,” he said.  “They…I killed…I didn’t know…”  He stammered, trying to get the words right. Finally he switched to English. “Steve Rogers is dead, Black Widow.  Someone has to stop them.”

She stared at him. 

Down the hall, the STRIKE agents rounded a corner. There was shouting. His face hardened and he gave her a shove. “Go, Widow, I will buy you as much time as I can.”

She glanced down the hall as the black garbed soldiers started to run towards them, and then back at the Winter Soldier. “What about you?” she said.

Grimly he shook his head, palming the door panel. The door slid shut. There was a crash and sparks flew through the crack. She turned and ran.

***

Time Magazine: **The year after the Potomac: a retrospective**

San Francisco Cronicle: **Avengers still evade justice**

Barrons: **Stark Industries courted by Hammer in multi-billion dollar deal**

Miami Herald: **Crime rates fall as Cybertek enhanced cops take to the street**

 

“This isn’t right!” Natasha protested, turning around in the red, white and blue suit. 

“You look good,” Clint said. 

Maria looked up from the computer screen. She was monitoring the chatter at the target site.  “It’s confirmed,” she said.  “The Winter Soldier is going to be there.”

Fury, who had been leaning against the wall, pushed to his feet and handed her the shield.  “Someone has to stop them,” he said. 

She looked at Fury and then at Clint, meeting their eye as her fingers closed around the shield.  With a practiced swing, she dropped it onto the hook on her back. “Let’s go.”


End file.
